10/25/00 Fans, and Trans

I stopped by Home Depot and found the perfect piece of steel for my fan support bracket. It’s 1/8 inch steel that’s 1/2 inch wide, and 48 inches long. I spent the morning cutting the steel into short sections with a hacksaw, grinding down the ends to a rounded off shape, and drilling holes to line up with the fan mounts, and radiator.

I test fitted the pieces several times to make sure the fan had enough clearance, and that the brackets would hold the fan firmly in place. I marked the pieces and ground down the ends to match the profile of the radiator. After everything was bolted in place and the fit was acceptable, I took everything apart to paint the pieces semi gloss black. With everything painted, the whole fan assembly will hide nicely in the recess of the grill.

Last Friday, I took the rear axle seal off to get a replacement. It was cracked and hard as a rock, so going through the trouble of replacing it was well worth it. Seeing how hard this seal was, François was concerned about the conditions of the two main seals on my transmission. Although I had just finished painting the case, I agreed that this was as good of a time as any to take the transmission apart to change the seals.

I first removed the bell housing to reveal the input shaft seal assembly. It’s held in place with four bolts. After the bolts were removed, I gently tapped the hub, and got a space to pry it part. Once the I had the hub in my hand, I could see the seal had no resiliency at all, and wasn’t doing any job at sealing itself to the hub. It’s a good thing we checked this seal, because a new seal will be far cheaper than replacing a gear oil soaked clutch!

On the other end of the transmission was another seal that would need replacing. It would require an impact gun to remove the castleated nut, but first the cotter pin would need to be removed. A small screw covered the hole to get to the cotter pin, but it didn’t make it any easier. My luck with cotter pins runs hot and cold. Some days they’ll literally fall out, but today that buger wouldn’t budge. Trying to push the cotter pin out would only bend it out of shape, and eventually it would break off. After struggling with the $%*#! thing for 20 minutes, I ended up removing the cotter pin one tiny piece at a time.

Now that the hard part is done, François will bring his impact gun and pull the seal out.

Just a little side note: The Air Cleaner is DONE!
 

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